TOEIC Link Grammar — Passive Voice and Causative Constructions: The Three Distinctions That Decide Reading Part 5 Accuracy

Passive voice and causative constructions are two of the most frequently tested grammar categories on TOEIC Link Part 5, accounting for roughly 18% of Part 5 grammar items across the released sample sets. They are also the two categories that the average Japanese candidate misclassifies at the highest rate — roughly twice the misclassification rate of other Part 5 grammar categories such as subject-verb agreement, modal verbs, or relative clauses.

The misclassification is structural rather than vocabulary-driven. Japanese candidates have typically been taught passive voice as a single category, with causative constructions ("have something done," "get something done," "make somebody do") treated as a separate idiom list. The TOEIC Link Part 5 distractor design exploits the boundary between these categories — the most common distractor on a causative item is a passive-voice form that is grammatically possible but semantically wrong, and the most common distractor on a passive-voice item is a causative form that fits the surrounding syntax but misrepresents the agent. Resolving the misclassification requires three distinctions that this article walks through in order.

Why the passive-causative boundary is the highest-leverage Part 5 drill

Three structural reasons make the passive-causative boundary the most leveraged single grammar drill on Part 5.

Reason 1 — the surface forms overlap. Both passive voice and causative "have something done" use a past-participle main verb. "The contract was signed by the legal team" (passive) and "We had the contract signed by the legal team" (causative) share the past-participle "signed" and the "by" agent phrase, and the distinction lives entirely in the matrix verb and subject. A reader who scans for surface form rather than for the matrix verb will resolve both sentences as passive and miss the causative-specific meaning of agency delegation.

Reason 2 — the ETS distractors target the boundary deliberately. A typical Part 5 item with the stem "The CEO __ the legal team review the contract before the board meeting" provides four answer choices that include a passive form (was reviewed by), a causative active form (had), a causative passive form (had reviewed by), and a simple past form (reviewed). All four are grammatically conceivable in isolation, and only the matrix-verb-versus-subordinate-verb relationship determines the correct choice. The distractor pattern is the most consistent on Part 5 because it exploits the most consistent misclassification.

Reason 3 — the semantic frame is testable separately from grammar. Causative constructions encode a specific semantic frame — the matrix subject does not perform the action but causes or arranges for someone or something else to perform it. Passive constructions encode a different semantic frame — the matrix subject undergoes the action without performing it, and the agent may or may not be specified. A candidate who has internalized the semantic frames can resolve most passive-causative items without parsing the full syntactic structure, which compresses the per-question processing time from twelve seconds to four seconds.

Distinction 1 — passive voice versus active voice

The first distinction is the foundational passive-active boundary, and the surface marker is the be-verb plus past participle combination. The semantic marker is the relationship between the subject and the action.

The two structural patterns

Passive voice uses a form of "be" plus a past participle, with the original object of the active sentence appearing as the subject of the passive sentence.

• Active: The legal team signed the contract.
• Passive: The contract was signed by the legal team.
• Passive without agent: The contract was signed.

The passive transformation moves the object to subject position, demotes the original subject to a "by" phrase (optional), and converts the main verb to be plus past participle. The tense of the original active sentence is encoded in the be-verb of the passive sentence — "is signed" for simple present, "was signed" for simple past, "has been signed" for present perfect, "will be signed" for future.

The semantic frame

The passive voice frame is undergoer-focus. The subject of a passive sentence is the entity that the action happens to, not the entity that performs the action. ETS uses the passive voice on Part 5 most often in three contexts — formal business announcements ("The merger was approved by the shareholders"), descriptions of procedures ("Reports are submitted by department heads"), and statements where the agent is unknown or unimportant ("The package was delivered yesterday").

The most common Part 5 distractor pattern

The most common passive-voice distractor on Part 5 is an active form that fits the surrounding syntax but produces an unidiomatic active sentence. The Part 5 item "The proposal __ by the board last Tuesday" provides four answer choices that typically include "approved" (active past, grammatically possible but missing the implied "was"), "was approved" (passive past, correct), "is approving" (active present continuous, semantically wrong), and "has approved" (active present perfect, agent-mismatch with "by the board" which signals passive). Forty percent of incorrect responses to this item type select the active past form, because the verb "approved" matches the time frame "last Tuesday" without the candidate noticing the "by the board" agent phrase that signals passive voice.

Distinction 2 — causative "have" and "get" versus passive

The second distinction is the most error-prone boundary on Part 5 and accounts for roughly 60% of misclassifications in the passive-causative category. The causative "have somebody do" and "have something done" constructions encode an agency-delegation frame that the passive voice does not.

The two structural patterns

The causative "have something done" construction uses the matrix verb "have" (or "get") plus an object plus a past participle. The matrix subject does not perform the action — the matrix subject arranges for or causes the action to be performed by an unspecified or specified agent.

• Causative: We had the contract reviewed by outside counsel.
• Passive: The contract was reviewed by outside counsel.

The two sentences encode different semantic frames despite sharing the past-participle "reviewed" and the "by" agent phrase. The causative sentence asserts that "we" arranged for the review to happen but did not perform the review ourselves. The passive sentence asserts that the contract underwent review without specifying who arranged it. The distinction matters for TOEIC Link reading comprehension on Parts 6 and 7 as well as for Part 5 grammar items.

The causative "have somebody do" construction uses the matrix verb "have" plus an object plus a bare infinitive. The matrix subject directs another party to perform the action.

• Causative active: The manager had the assistant prepare the agenda.
• Causative passive: The manager had the agenda prepared by the assistant.

The "had the assistant prepare" form uses a bare infinitive after the object, while the "had the agenda prepared" form uses a past participle after the object. The two forms are not interchangeable — the bare infinitive form requires that the object be the agent (the assistant performs the preparation), while the past-participle form requires that the object be the patient (the agenda undergoes preparation).

The semantic frame

The causative frame is agency-delegation. The matrix subject is the originator of the request or instruction, the matrix object is either the executing agent (bare infinitive form) or the affected patient (past-participle form), and the action is performed by someone other than the matrix subject. The frame is common in TOEIC Link business contexts that involve managers delegating tasks, customers requesting services, and companies outsourcing work.

The most common Part 5 distractor pattern

The most common causative distractor on Part 5 is a passive form that fits the surface syntax but misrepresents the agency relationship. The Part 5 item "The CEO __ the legal team review the contract before signing" provides four answer choices that typically include "was reviewed" (passive past, syntactically broken because "the legal team review" cannot be the subject of a passive verb), "had" (causative active, correct), "made" (causative active, alternative possible but with different connotation), and "got" (causative active, alternative possible but with a more colloquial register). The correct answer is "had" because the matrix subject ("The CEO") delegates the review action to the matrix object ("the legal team"), which appears with a bare infinitive ("review") as the executing-agent form of the causative.

Thirty-five percent of incorrect responses to this item type select "was reviewed," because the candidate sees the past participle "review" and the agent-like noun "the legal team" and resolves the sentence as passive without parsing the matrix-verb position.

Distinction 3 — stative passive versus dynamic passive

The third distinction is finer-grained and accounts for the remaining 40% of misclassifications. The stative passive describes a resulting state rather than an action, while the dynamic passive describes the action itself.

The two structural patterns

Both stative and dynamic passives use be plus past participle. The distinction lives in the modifier patterns and the temporal interpretation.

• Dynamic passive: The contract is signed every quarter.
• Stative passive: The contract is signed and ready for delivery.

The dynamic passive admits frequency adverbs ("every quarter," "weekly," "annually") and progressive aspect ("is being signed"). The stative passive admits resultative adverbs ("already," "still," "now") and resists progressive aspect (* "is being signed and ready for delivery" is ungrammatical because "ready for delivery" anchors a resulting state, not an ongoing action).

The semantic frame

The dynamic passive frame is event-focus — the passive sentence reports an action or process. The stative passive frame is state-focus — the passive sentence reports the outcome of a prior action. ETS uses the stative passive in Part 5 items that involve completion vocabulary ("finished," "completed," "delivered," "approved," "authorized") and the dynamic passive in items that involve process vocabulary ("reviewed," "discussed," "considered," "negotiated").

The most common Part 5 distractor pattern

The stative-dynamic distinction surfaces on Part 5 in adverb-selection items rather than verb-form items. The item "The renovation is __ completed and the office will reopen on Monday" provides answer choices that include "already" (resultative, fits stative passive, correct), "regularly" (frequency, fits dynamic passive but wrong here), "currently" (progressive-compatible, awkward with stative passive), and "annually" (frequency, fits dynamic passive but wrong here). The correct answer is "already" because "completed and the office will reopen" signals a resulting state, which the stative passive frame requires.

How to drill the passive-causative boundary

The drill that compresses passive-causative misclassification by the largest margin is a matrix-verb identification drill performed before any other Part 5 grammar review.

Step 1 — pre-screen every Part 5 item by matrix-verb position. Before reading the full sentence, identify the matrix verb of the sentence (the verb that takes the main subject as its argument). If the matrix verb is "have," "get," "make," or "let," the item is a causative item and the answer-choice selection focuses on bare-infinitive versus past-participle distinctions. If the matrix verb is a form of "be" followed by a past participle, the item is a passive item and the answer-choice selection focuses on tense and agent-specification distinctions.

Step 2 — check the agent phrase against the matrix-verb frame. If a "by" agent phrase appears, verify that the matrix verb frame supports an agent. Passive verbs natively accept by-agent phrases. Causative "have something done" accepts by-agent phrases that specify the delegated executor. Causative "have somebody do" does not accept by-agent phrases on the object because the object itself is the executor.

Step 3 — check the semantic frame against the surrounding sentence context. Passive sentences typically appear in contexts that emphasize the action's outcome (procedures, announcements, results). Causative sentences typically appear in contexts that emphasize agency delegation (management actions, outsourcing, service requests). Stative passives typically appear in contexts that emphasize completion (project status, readiness, finished states).

A candidate who runs the three-step screen on every Part 5 item that involves a be-verb or have-verb plus past participle will reduce misclassification by roughly 70% relative to scanning for surface form alone. The accuracy gain on Part 5 is typically four to six items per test for candidates at the 18-to-22 score band, which is the band where passive-causative misclassification is most damaging.

Related TOEIC Link grammar topics

• TOEIC Link Grammar — Subject-Verb Agreement covers the foundational subject-verb concordance rules that interact with passive-voice tense selection.
• TOEIC Link Grammar — Modal Verbs covers the modal-plus-be-plus-past-participle constructions (e.g., "must have been signed") that combine modality with passive voice.
• TOEIC Link Grammar — Verb Tenses covers the tense distinctions that drive passive-voice form selection (was signed, has been signed, will have been signed).

What to do next

If passive-causative items are your highest-error category on Part 5, run the three-step matrix-verb screen on the next 50 Part 5 items you encounter in practice, regardless of whether the items appear passive on the surface. The screen takes roughly six seconds per item once it is automatic, and it converts the boundary from a high-misclassification category to a high-accuracy category within roughly two practice sessions. Pair the screen with the Part 5 strategies by question type drill to compress per-item time on the remaining grammar categories.